Talking In 'Ernest' Is Fun And Games

September 26, 1986|by GEOFF GEHMAN, The Morning Call

Jack Worthing insists a "gentleman" always must owe money. "One must have some preoccupation these days," he explains to Perkins, his manservant in town. "If I hadn't my debts, I shouldn't have anything to think about."

This comment represents the wonderfully dry, snappy spirit of Oscar Wilde, in whose 1895 social comedy, "The Importance of Being Earnest," Worthing first surfaced. The playwright's playfully acerbic personality colors "Ernest in Love," a 1960 musical farce which opened last night at Muhlenberg College.

Like its source, "Ernest" ridicules affectionately the games invented by bored aristocrats. Worthing and his mates fight idleness by creating sordid alter egos, provoking members of the "commercial" class for sport, and gabbing endlessly about insubstantial topics. For them, logic or attentiveness is not nearly as important as cleverness.

"Talk as entertainment - that's a lost art," muses Charles Richter, director of the Muhlenberg production. Borrowing heavily from Wilde, the master of the wicked undercut, Anne Croswell, the musical's lyricist and book author, created a trail of memorable epigrams. Long after the farce has been forgotten, long after the characters have been dismissed, the sparkling barbs linger.

Most of the best lines emphasize the creative empty-headedness of Wilde's favorite scapegoat, the 19th-century English leisure class. Gwendolen Fairfax, for example, believes a perfect hat will catch Jack "Ernest" Worthing. He is perfect, she says, because his name is Ernest. "There is something in the name," she reports smoothly, "whichinspires confidence."

"I am not in favor of long engagements," opines Lady Bracknell, a devotee of cucumber sandwiches. "They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage - which I think is never advisable." Marriage, insists Perkins, is a contract between "misunderstanding" parties.

"Fortunately in England," says Lady Bracknell, "education produces no effect whatsoever." Sniffs Algernon Moncrieff, a surprise suitor who is not nearly as earnest as "Ernest": "If I am occasionally over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated."

"Ernest in Love" breathes with double-edged swords thrust by calm, smiling, forever guarded people. Speaking with quiet, witty menace is a major challenge, which is one of the reasons why Richter chose Wilde for his students.

"We're not used to speaking in complex sentences with internal clauses," he points out. "We're used to talking in much more simplified, televisionized language . . . Wilde worked aphorisms into everyday speech, and wit and wisdom. The challenge is: How do you make the characters expansive without making them obnoxious? How do you make them coy without being cloying?"

One must remember, he notes, that Wilde did not despise his creations. While William S. Gilbert in his play "Engaged" treated similar characters as "vapid" and villainous, Wilde gave them charm and sympathy. One can see the difference in tone in the well-known tea scene, a prime exercise of subtle mood modulations for actors of any age, adds Richter. In Wilde/Croswell, Gwendolen and Cecily Cardew consume muffins while battling over the right to wed "Ernest." In Gilbert's version, the rivals "gorge themselves on cream cakes."

"Wilde was really writing about the different ways the different classes make love - artificial love for the upper class, earthy love for the lower," notes Anthony Santore. Santore is a Bethlehem lawyer and former teacher of English and business law at Muhlenberg who helped build the sets for a Pocono Playhouse version of "Ernest in Love," which ran for a week immediately after the Off-Broadway opening. " . . . All three of the couples unite by choosing the reality of affection."

Croswell and composer Lee Pockriss, who first wrote "Ernest in Love" as a 1959 "U.S. Steel Hour" special called "Who's Earnest?," actually trumped up Wilde's fun. For example, Gwendolen sings: "Godiva's famous ride fell absolutely flat/ But people would have noticed her/ If she had/But worn a charming and alarming and a most disarming hat."

Muhlenberg's Curtis Dretsch has expanded the absurd by designing a set which resembles a huge wedding cake. Characters are supposed to be as insignificant and, yes, as harmless as tiny plastic figures.

Santore recalls that in the 1960 Pocono Playhouse version "the only substantial thing was a big four-poster bed. The muffins were quarter- or half-dollar-sized. The sets were as frivolous and frilly as the play."

In short, "Ernest in Love" contains many savory bits. "This play is full of throwaways," claims Santore. "If they played up every line, it would take four hours to finish . . . "

"Ernest in Love" will start at 8 p.m. tonight through Sunday in the Empie Theatre of Muhlenberg College's Center for the Arts. Matinees also will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For information, call 433-2163.